


turning the night to day

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, background polymachina vibes, deaths and resurrections, the raven queen has two champions dot show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-11-29 23:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11451711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: (Can we end the endings? / Can we make believe this will last forever?): Vex is used to giving away pieces of her heart, to Vax, to Pike, to Keyleth and Zahra and Percival and all the rest. It's safer that way, in hands much less fragile and much more deserving. But this feels different, like a deal not quite finalised, and when Vex closes her eyes she imagines she can feel the soft half-desperate flutter of wings in a space she had never realised was empty.Or; Pike, Vex, and the slow fade towards death





	turning the night to day

**Author's Note:**

> title and summary quote from delain, 'pendulum'

The first time Vex nearly falls to death, they all know. They're a fractured, frightened thing, Vox Machina, outmatched and still moving forward, but everything stops, for Vex.

She fades fast underground, magic still and silent except the sickly green still lighting Vex's cheeks, like Delilah didn't so much hit her with a spell as much as sink her nails into Vex's heart and _cling_ , like all that sharp smiling life is only Delilah's now.

Maybe that's why it's easier to walk forward now, to the thin line where unconsciousness slowly becomes something _else._ Maybe that's why it's so quiet now, just the dull echo of her single heartbeat to —

— _single_ , for the first time since she can remember —

— _wrong_ , because she has never been alone —

— Vex wakes in her brother's arms with a cry, blinded with the shock of Pike's astral form, and everything is just as it was except the stone is sharper under her hands and the shadows darker in the corners of her eyes and when they stumble up into the first sunshine Whitestone has seen in far too long she thinks maybe she's left a part of herself underground.

She thinks, in the long nights when she says nothing at all because the only person she wants to talk to is Pike, and Pike _isn't here,_ that maybe she's left a part of herself somewhere much harder to return to.

Vex is used to giving away pieces of her heart, to Vax, to Pike, to Keyleth and Zahra and Percival and all the rest. It's safer that way, in hands much less fragile and much more deserving. But this feels different, like a deal not quite finalised, and when Vex closes her eyes she imagines she can feel the soft half-desperate flutter of wings in a space she had never realised was empty.

Cold has never been so foreign, or so close.

 

**

 

The second time, Vex _does_ die, and Pike isn't there. Instead she pieces the story together, after, after Keyleth has been consoled and Percy forgiven and Vax ... _changed._

It's Kashaw who tells her what she's already guessed, sliding onto a bar stool next to her while Zahra makes supportive sibling eyes at him from across the tavern and Pike pretends it doesn't hurt that her family didn't tell her first.

 _There's something about her,_ he says, and he won't meet her eyes. _About both of them, but ... the darkness went straight for her. Like she was already death's._

He of all of them would know, Pike thinks, looking at his scars. _I think_ , she says slowly, _I think you're right. But I think it'll be better, now that Vax..._ She trails off, words inadequate to the warm flutter of hope against her ribcage, beating like the heart she failed to give back to Vex.

 _I dunno._ Kash stares morosely into his glass. _It's creepy how identical they are._

The twins had made a game of it, when they first started travelling together, trying to see how long they could fool the rest of the party into believing they were the other. Sometimes Pike wondered how they ever thought they were fooling anyone, when Vex had feathers in her hair and Vax had daggers at his waist. Other times, there was an unnatural solemnity to their eyes when they said it, something almost scared, and Pike would think of being young again with JB's small hands pressed to her cheeks and wonder if even the twins knew who was who.

 _But they're both here,_ Pike says firmly. _And that's what matters. Kashaw ... thank you. For doing what I couldn't._

He gives a half-shrug and does not smile. _Whatever. We got lucky. Just keep an eye on her, okay?_

 _I will,_ Pike says, but the words sound hollow even to her own ears. Her family leaves too often, these days, and the pain of being pulled across all of Tal'Dorei is nothing like the ecstasy of being stretched between all of them.

 _I will,_ she says, and knows that fate's gaze reaches deeper into Vex's soul than her own ever could, even with the light of Sarenrae to guide her.

Kash puts his hand over hers, orders another round, and she loves him for his silence.

 

**

 

And so she lives.

She is not sure it matters.

 

**

 

 _My name is Vex,_ she whispers into Trinket's fur, _and I am alive._

She is dreaming, unless she isn't. She thought she was dreaming when she was dead.

 _My name is Vex,_ she whispers into ravens' wings, _and I was dead and I replaced a broken promise with a different one._

She is dreaming, unless she isn't. She understands the promise of death now, better than she did when she was dead.

 _My name is Vex,_ she does not have to whisper to the lady in the silence, _and I am yours too, though I do not know how._

She is dreaming, unless she isn't, but then why else does she wake with a cry strangled in her throat like a half-dead thing?

 

**

 

When Pike does get to stay with Vox Machina, she spends more nights in Vex's bed than not. Not always: sometimes Keyleth comes to her with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes and ideas she wouldn't trust to anyone else, sometimes Vax comes to her with empty eyes and open arms and tears he doesn't show to anyone else. Sometimes the care has wrung so much from her heart that she piles pillows on Grog's chest until they're stacked so high she can hardly balance on them as her brother laughs and laughs beneath her when she chases sleep.

But it's Vex's room that she comes back to, four solid walls with no doors to Scanlan's room and no shrine to Sarenrae except Vex herself.

 _Selfish,_ Pike thinks sometimes, to claim for herself and her goddess a woman raised by a different goddess and bargained to a third. But more often than not she simply thinks, _mine_ , face buried between Vex's thighs such that she thinks she might drown in the warmth of her, and Vex doesn't say anything in response but _please, Pike, please._

Other nights are harder. _Sometimes_ , Vex says, late on those nights when the sadness in her eyes is so deep Pike doesn't even try to kiss it away, _sometimes I wonder why she didn't take me instead. Wasn't I closer to Her?_

Pike holds her ever closer, buries her face in the crook of Vex's neck and murmurs, _you're loved here. It wasn't your time._

Even in the dark she cannot give voice to her true fear, that the Raven Queen took Vex and Vax both, and gave neither of them back quite right. Pike has built her life trusting in Sarenrae's second chances, and Vex wan and shadowed, Vax fearful and quiet, looks nothing like the redemption she has been taught to give.

 _I have you,_ she says instead. _I have you, and if She wants you, She'll have to get through me first._

Vex sits up, lets the sheets pool around her waist. In the moonlight, her naked skin looks nearly transparent where it isn't hidden by the soft fall of her hair. _What if ... Pike, what if I wanted Her?_

For the first time since Pike has known her, she sounds afraid of her desire. _Then_ , Pike says firmly, clambering into Vex's lap and cupping her face firmly in both hands, _then we have a more complicated deal to work out. And She has more promises to make._

 

**

 

Pike dies, and sees Vex.

It's the briefest flash, Vex's body sprawled on broken rocks as the flames of her armour lift her back to her feet, and in the chaos of the battlefield she could almost dismiss it as nothing more than her heart reaching out in its not-yet-last moments.

But Pike's faith is not so lapsed that she can fail to see a vision from her goddess for what it is.

As she finds her way into an uneasy sleep that night, curled into Vex's side, she prays for the first time in a very long while. _Please, Sarenrae,_ she says, deep in her heart where Vex cannot hear in her sleep, _please let me be there next time._

 

**

 

And so she is.

It almost doesn't matter.

 

**

 

 _Your name is Vex_ , Pike whispers into her bruised skin, _and you will not die here today._

She is dreaming, unless she isn't. The long burning nightmare of the siege of Emon stretches behind and ahead in equal measure.

 _Her name is Vex,_ Pike whispers into the light pouring from her hands, _and she was dead but never unloved so I made a promise._

She is dreaming, unless she isn't. There is movement in the light this time, someone else watching her work, watching her plead.

 _Her name is Vex,_ Pike does not have to whisper to the lady in the silence, _and she is yours, though she still has work to do here._

She is dreaming, unless she isn't, because Vex is awake now in her arms screaming like a half-dead thing.

 

**

 

Vex is closer to death now than she is to anything except her brother. She had feared watching him fade, the first few days after they left the tomb, but months later it is she who can feel her grip slipping, _slipping._

She drags Vax to the Whitestone battlements, rests on her broom just a few inches above the ground while he hugs his knees and stares up at her. _I was back with Her, for a moment,_ she says, and it does nothing to stem the rising tide of guilt in his eyes. _She sent me back. Because of you, and Pike, and ..._

 _I know,_ he says, _I know, Vex'ahlia, I am so, so sorry I let that happen again._

 _It's not your fault,_ she sniffles, and her voice feels unnaturally loud in the quiet. _Why does She do this, Vax?_ she asks as if he would have the answers. The Raven Queen is her lady but his _goddess_ , and the disconnect sits uneasy in her chest. _Why does She choose us like this, why can't She just talk to us like ... like Pike talks to Sarenrae, or ..._

 _Why do I have to die to see Her, when you don't?_ she does not ask. She doesn't need to, because they haven't been identical since the first time Delilah carried her to death's threshold and left her there laughing.

He reaches up, takes her hand, and his fingers are warmer than she expected. _I love you,_ he says, and maybe it's an answer. _And I know She loves us too._

 _Do you love Her?_ she does not ask. She doesn't need to, because they've always been identical.

 

**

 

Vex does not dream of dying.

She dreams of her brother, and of being dead.

 

**

 

Vox Machina circles tighter around each other after Scanlan leaves. Vex presses closer to all of them, pleads _stay, stay_ in every way she can but words, but she can't shake the feeling that the tighter she holds on the further away they all are.

In some ways it's almost a relief when the kraken spits Vax out broken and still. Something inside Vex breaks the same when she sees him, and for once the words come easy, anchored between Keyleth's furious solidity and Pike's blinding fluidity.

 _This is the deal that we've always been walking towards, isn't it?_ she asks. Bent over her brother's body, she can almost feel the weight of the wings he wanted to give her on her back. _This is when I offer you my hand, my service, and you give him back to me, isn't it?_

There is a face in the shadows that cloud her eyes and she thinks it must be smiling.

 _You've had me since you took him. You know, you must, you_ must _— give him back, and I will slay your enemies, I'll be what he is for you even if you don't name me._

The room is overflowing with light: Pike's, Keyleth's, _Hers._ Vex sinks into the spaces between the lights, and waits, and does not smile until Vax breaths again.

 _Now,_ the Raven Queen says. _Now you know your deal. Our connection. My love._

Vax reaches out for her as the voice fades, and she climbs onto the dais, feels Keyleth tuck herself into Vax's other side and hears the soft brush of Pike's astral hands through her hair.

 _Now,_ she thinks, _now we can begin._

Pike lingers past nightfall, past dawn. She's too hard to hold, but she lies with them on the blankets in their hut and everything feels almost whole, almost right. _Come back soon,_ Pike begs. _Come back, all of you, please, Vex ..._

 _I will_ , Vex promises, and she wonders what Pike thinks she is pulling her back _from_.

Wonders what Pike sees in the gold-strung doomed future ahead of them, and why her own lady will not grant her the same.

 

**

 

The rebuilding is ever harder than the salvation. Pike had the months of the Conclave's rule to learn this, but as the months of the _after_ drag on, she finds she has no way to ease the lesson for her friends. They drift in and out of Vex's restored mansion like so many dust motes in a sunbeam, limp and directionless after an end to the world that wasn't really an end.

She goes to Vasselheim, watches Grog fight and wins a tidy sum of money herself. Sometimes Vex comes along, flashes them playfully from the stands and cheers louder than anyone.

 _You fight better when I'm around,_ she laughs, twirling Pike through the Quadroads and eyeing the stalls for something suitably colourful. _Here,_ she says, stopping in front of a green and gold jumpsuit that's perfectly gnomish sized. _A gift for my love, the champion of the Crucible!_

Pike sees the moment the word _champion_ sticks in Vex's throat, the light of haggling fade from her eyes as her gaze darts around in panic, as if her Lady might have heard from her own district and might come swooping down to carry her away. _Pike, can you ..._

 _Of course_ , she murmurs. Pays full price for the outfit and follows Vex to Her temple without another word.

The temple is dark, quiet among the rest of the district. She should think it cold, Pike knows, and the memory of Vax returning from speaking to Her covered in blood does send a chill down her spine. But before that is the thought of the first priest of the Raven Queen she met, and the weeks they spent unstitching the curse knotted around Sarenrae's risen temple.

 _Do not take them from me,_ she thinks, as Vex presses her hand to the stone and doesn't say anything at all. _Do not take them from me and we won't have a problem, okay?_

If the stones could smile at her, they would, she thinks, but she's not at all sure what that means.

Finally Vex returns, slips her hand into Pike's and laces their fingers together. _Would you hate me,_ she says after they've left the Duskmeadow well behind, _if I told you I want Her to tell me what to do already? It's been so long since the Conclave, since Vesrah, and ..._

 _I know,_ Pike says. The same restlessness that's been skittering through her bones echoes hollow in Vex's voice. _I mean, Sarenrae isn't really one for tasks, so much as ... living, but it's too different now, isn't it?_

Vex looks around, tugs Pike into an alleyway and drops to her knees to kiss her. Pike kisses her back half-desperately, threads her fingers through Vex's hair to keep her even closer. It feels a harder thing to do now, even when they're not facing death every day. _I miss Vax,_ Vex whispers, finally dropping her head to Pike's shoulder. _I miss Keyleth, I miss ..._ moving. _It's been so quiet lately._

 _I know,_ Pike says again. There doesn't seem anything else to say at all. _Maybe it just means we'll be ready, when the time comes._

 

**

 

It doesn't mean that at all.

And Vex is dead, again.

 

**

 

 _You are my champion,_ the lady in the silence whispers, _and this was not part of any deals we made._

Vex wakes up and nothing is better, not even the fact that she is alive.

 _You love my champions_ , the lady in the silence whispers, _and I will send you back to them._

Pike wakes up stitched together by fire and her family is still dying, dying, gone.

 _You are my champion,_ the lady in the silence whispers, _and you have earned your rest, though it would be with only half your heart._

Vax wakes up to magenta skies and frantic embraces, and he is not sure he is awake at all.

 

**

 

Nothing Pike has told her about what talking with Sarenrae is like _actually_ prepares Vex for seeing the two of them together. _Renewal_ , the realm promises, but the hole under Vex's heart aches and _aches._

 _I can't give this to her,_ she thinks. _Not when my lady_ — _not when my lady is_ —

But Pike takes her hand as the group prepares to leave, hangs back from the rest of them to pull Vex down and whisper, _I'm so glad I got to share this with you_ and, maybe, Vex thinks, maybe if she believes enough in Pike, too, it won't matter.

Pelor is easier, after that. He doesn't shine as brightly as Pike, doesn't have a realm that feels it could be home if the world went just a bit sideways. Pelor has a task and a challenge and eyes just like her father, so she takes her brother's boots and her lover's light and her best friend's belief and rockets to the sky as angels fall around her.

The light falls away as she flies, shadows like wings covering her eyes and the wind rough at her back like there's another layer there. By the time she reaches the top, there is only fire in the black.

 _I'm sorry, my lady,_ she thinks before she jumps, and before she lands, she remembers: _Pike wears his armour._

She is not sure the thought is her own, but it feels like acceptance.

 

**

 

So perhaps there is death where her given-away heart used to lie.

Still she and those who matter know it means _love._


End file.
